


over the mountains and under the stars

by nadin



Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Light Angst, Love Letters, i enjoyed writing this more than i expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:54:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25377988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: WonderTrev Love Week 2020Day 6 - LettersI will come back, Diana wrote.And I will wait, Steve thought.Steve and Diana exchange letters after being separated by war.Cold Mountain AU teaser.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Comments: 12
Kudos: 50
Collections: Wondertrev Week 2020





	over the mountains and under the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Sometime in the beginning of this year (which happened roughly 75 years ago) I started drafting an outline for the Cold Mountain AU. Those of you who haven't seen the film or read the book, please do so, they are both very good. To sum it up real quick, Cold Mountain is a story about a soldier who is trying to get back home to a girl he loves amidst the Civil War. 
> 
> There are some aspects of the original book/film plot that don't translate to Steve and Diana and their characters well so I had to change a few things, like the fact that I'm doing a role reversal here and Diana is the one who is fighting while Steve is waiting for her after being sent home when he was injured. In the meantime - letters! 
> 
> That's basically all you need to know to enjoy this small piece :)
> 
> Oh, and Etta is there! Helping Steve deal with all kinds of stuff he has no idea how to deal with - I couldn't help bringing her in.

He saw Etta the second he reached the flat area of the pasture and the house came into view. She was standing on the porch and waving something in the air.

Steve’s heart skipped a beat, with worry. And then it did again, when he realized that what she was holding was a letter. It could be something from one of the many people to whom he owed money, of course. Or it could be a message from one of his friends in Charleston. It didn’t have to be from Diana, he knew.

Yet he couldn’t help speeding up just a bit all the same, ignoring the tugging ache in his thigh as he began to trudge, rather awkwardly, towards the house. Almost two years on, and his old battle wound still was as temperamental as ever. A jolt of pain shot through his leg. He gritted his teeth and vowed silently to toss the letter into the fire if it was from anyone other than Diana for making him run when, on days like today, he still had trouble walking.

“Good thing she is not here to see that graceless trot,” Etta hummed when Steve climbed the four steps leading to the porch.

He glared at her and snatched the letter from her hand. “Give it to me.”

Etta huffed. “As if I would have read it.”

She rolled her eyes and disappeared inside the house.

Steve watched her, waiting for the door to slam shut and only then daring to examine the envelope. It was wrinkled and smudged with dirt after passing through too many hands. There was no return address, but his own was written in Diana’s neat handwriting that he would recognize anywhere, with the two blots of ink splattered on the back as if she had been in a hurry. The seal hadn’t been touched, either, much to his relief.

He felt the corners of his mouth twist a little, his fingertips tracing the rough paper.

He glanced up at the sky then, at the storm brewing in the east and the clouds gathering behind the trees. It would be a big one, he knew, the old injury to his leg rarely gave him trouble over a drizzle. But it wouldn’t be here for a while. Not for a few hours, at least.

He looked back towards the house and the light coming from the kitchen window where Etta was likely elbows deep in cooking and baking and frying. On any other day, Steve would have walked right in to help—not even minding the way she bossed him around, grateful for the company more than the food that would undoubtedly be better than anything he could cook on his own. (The last time he had tried, before Etta’s miraculous arrival, he had ended up eating an overripe pear for dinner, because of how bad his biscuits had turned out.)

But today was not just any day. He hadn’t had a letter from Diana in at least two months now, and like each time when a few weeks would pass without a message from her, he had wondered if she had simply forgotten him, consumed by war and death and things bigger than anything happening in his small corner of the world. He would not have blamed her if that happened, he knew. But it would have hurt, all the same.

He glanced at the house once more, half-expecting Etta to call out to him.

And when she didn’t, he once again descended the steps and headed towards the outcropping of rocks near the border of his property. A spot where he often went to be alone with his thoughts.

Steve lowered down onto the ground under a large tree, his fingers shaking as he carefully ripped the envelope open. He had to pause and take a breath before he managed to focus on her neat handwriting, before the letters stopped dancing before his eyes, his heart hammering fast against the inside of his breast bone.

 _The moon is full tonight,_ Diana wrote. _So big and bright it feels like it is taking up half of the sky, offering enough light to write by without disturbing anyone._

She always mentioned the moon, and at first, Steve assumed it was about her fondness or, perhaps, an attempt to remain poetic in a time when their lives were a mangled knot of blood and death and cruelty. It was only later that he had worked out that it was Diana’s way of tracking time, of letting him know when her letters were written, how long it took them to reach him.

Never fast enough.

He looked up, in hopes of finding the pale crescent over the north-east ridge that framed the valley beyond his property, but the clouds above him were getting lower and thicker with each passing moment. He wondered, absently, if Diana would feel this storm as well, or if she was far enough away for it to pass by without her noticing so much as a gust of wind.

_I never knew it could take so long. There was a time, not long ago, when I believed it would be over by now. I don’t know what to believe anymore, except in hope, for what is life if there is no hope?_

_Yesterday, I saw a white rabbit in the trenches. I have not seen anything this white, this clean in months, it felt surreal. The men wanted to catch him, but it escaped as if it knew that its time was not up yet. I wonder if it was a sign, or if I want to see one where there is none._

She wrote about small things, mundane things—never the war, he had long noticed. Even when he asked, she rarely spoke of it. Instead, her letters contained mostly good things, Steve noted. She would have lost her mind if she didn’t focus on good things, she had told him once.

He remembered the bad ones well enough himself. The hunger and the cold and the smell of blood that had engrained so deeply into his senses that he had once perceived fresh air as something odd, unnatural, almost disturbing. Knowing that Diana had to live that wretched reality now made everything inside of him ache. 

_There is the same card game underway for three weeks now, picked up each time where it has been left off the night before. I wish you were here to see it. This game is a world of its own._

_“I wish you were here.” I wrote this without thinking and it’s a lie. I’m glad you are not. I’m glad you no longer see what I do, though I miss you beyond anything._

_When I don’t dream of anything else, I dream of you._

Steve read it again. And then once more. And then he read it over and over until he could hear her voice speaking those words, the field and the rocks falling away, giving way to a different time, a different place. He read it until the thunder started to rumble above him in earnest and the first drops of rain fell from the sky.

He tucked the letter into the inner pocket of his jacket then, fearful of it getting soaked, and ran towards the bright lights beckoning him through the darkness that had fallen without him noticing. It was pouring in earnest by the time he reached the porch, his leg aching, but his chest felt full, his heart seemingly ten times its size all of a sudden, leaving him feeling as though it was only his wet clothes keeping him from floating into the stormy sky.

Etta was waiting for him by the door that stood ajar, the light behind it warm and welcoming.

“You done daydreaming or would you like to roll in the mud for good measure?” she asked dryly, but her gaze was kind, and Steve only laughed in response.

He looked towards the mountains behind which Diana now was. 

_When I don’t dream of anything else, I dream of you._

* * *

By the time Diana reached the camp, it was nightfall, and the place was alight with campfires that cast misshapen shadows on the canvas walls of the tents.

She never slept in camp. While most men yearned for those moments of unity, of celebrating each night that they were still alive, that they had made it through another day, finding comfort in numbers, she often ached for space and silence. For the need to imagine, if fleetingly, that she was the only person left alive in this world.

But word had reached her just as she was about to settle down for the night that the mail had come, giving her heart a wild tug of hope and longing. She had tried not to think of it for so long that it was spilling over now, flooding her senses, clouding her reason.

She made her way between clumps of men, ignoring the bursts of laughter and her name being called out, occasionally. Her eyes scanned the crowd, moving from one face to another and then to the next one—

“Diana!”

She stopped, her gaze zeroing in on Sameer waving to her from some thirty feet ahead. His smile was wide and loosened by ale, and it was hard to believe that it was only hours ago that everyone here, every single one of these men, had been running away from bullets and praying to see the light of a new day.

“Do you have it?” Diana asked, trying, and failing, to keep the edge of impatience out of her voice.

He grinned at her, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He put his mug down and dove into his knapsack before pulling an envelope folded in two from one of the inside pockets.

“No need to thank me, _ma chérie,”_ he laughed a little when Diana nearly tore it from his fingers.

Diana swallowed, her throat tight, and mustered a smile.

“Thank you, Sami,” she said, squeezing his shoulder.

If he said anything after that, she missed it entirely as she started to weave her away through the camp and away from it, from the heat of fires and bodies, until there was nothing but night above her head and she could breathe again.

Far enough away from everyone else that she could no longer hear them, Diana started her own fire, comforted by the light and the quiet crackling that filled the night, chasing away the silence that had started growing more and more oppressing lately. Slowly, she pulled the letter from the envelope, her fingers shaking a little as she willing herself not to rush, to savour the moment.

 _Etta planted a cabbage patch,_ Steve wrote. _We mended the fence running along the north side of the farm, too. She said that if I’d done it myself, it would have been blown over by the first gust of wind._

Diana smiled, feeling a small laugh rise up her throat. He had stopped asking her about the war. Had stopped speaking of his experiences, either, when she refused to talk about her own. She wondered if he was offended by it, though he had never said anything. Wondered if he ever wondered why she was so adamant to keep it away from everything that they were.

One day, she might tell him, she thought. Once the fight was over. If he still wanted to listen then.

 _If someone told me four years ago that I would start growing my own tomatoes, I would have laughed them in the face,_ his letter continued, bringing another unbidden smile to her face _. Now, not only do I know how, but I know how to tell the ripe ones from those I shouldn’t touch yet for a day or two. I can feel the weather change without a single cloud being in the sky. It is the most peculiar feeling I never knew existed within me, but now it’s there, wherever I go._

Diana stared at the letters, some of them jumpy and uneven in the beginning, as though he had had to start and stop and start again, before the words began to flow, the lines becoming more even closer to the middle of the page. Half a fingerprint in the corner, where he had touched it with a thumb smudged in ink.

She touched her own fingertips to it, amazed by the notion of Steve handling this very piece of paper only weeks before. If she focused hard enough, she could still remember his touch, the way it had felt against her skin all those months ago. So many months. She looked up, listening for a change in the wind, but the night was still. At the camp, the men would soon be retiring for bed, too worn out to pretend that the night could last forever.

_I wonder sometimes if you’d recognized me if you saw me in the street, or among the troops you’re fighting alongside with. Or if you’d look right past me and continue walking as though I’m another stranger, another nameless face. It’s not in the looks, this change, though the beard I had grown two months ago was unflattering, apparently. So I was told._

_No, it’s in the soul. Do you ever wonder about this? If people would ever recognize each other if we only saw what is within. I wonder this often, if you’ll still want to have me when the war is over. I write this and I don’t know why, but the compulsion to tell you this is stronger than me._

_I hope this letter finds you well. That you are as safe as anyone can be where you are, and that people are kind to you, even now. Especially now._

Diana traced the last line with her fingers, Steve’s voice in her head as loud and clear as though he was sitting right next to her.

She sat there, without moving, for another few hours until the fire burned itself out, asking herself again and again how long she could stay away from him before the distance between them ripped her in half.

* * *

The nightmares had started when Steve had been in the hospital. By some miracle, he had made it through his service without dreaming of the unspeakable things he had seen every day, but the moment they had given him morphine, the memories came, hard and fast, flooding his mind with things better off forgotten.

He had been dreaming of them almost nightly, since.

In the dead of the night, haunted by the empty eyes of those who would never return to their loved ones, Steve crept slowly down the stairs and towards the office his father had once used to read. He rarely stepped foot in there these days. Even now, almost three years after his father’s death, he felt like an intruder, like a child sneaking into a forbidden place. But now, he headed straight there, only pausing briefly to make sure that the light in Etta’s small room at the other end of the hallway was off and she would not come to inquire if something was wrong.

Something was, and Steve had no idea how to put an end to it.

He closed the door behind him and turned on the reading lamp sitting on a heavy mahogany desk. And then, once settled into his father’s chair, he opened the top drawer and pulled out the stack of Diana’s letters, every single one of them, kept in order and tied together with a string.

_I will come back. One way or another, I will come back, I promise._

She had once told him that a promise was unbreakable, and Steve had wondered then who it was who had told her such foolishness and how she could look at the world around her and still believe it. But he had never argued, and on days like today, her steady assuredness was the only anchor he had to keep him from being set adrift.

_I think of you often, even in the darkest moments when no hope is left. I think of you, and it feels like salvation even if there is little of it left for us all._

He picked another letter, and then another one.

_Remember that Christmas three years ago? The brooch you gave me, and the promise to wait._

_It is strange and unbelievable that we all walk under the same sky, see the same stars. The people that kill and those who carry nothing but goodness in the hearts. Do you ever think it odd that we live in the same world but it couldn’t be more different for each of us?_

Steve stared at the words, slightly faded from age, on the cheap, thick paper. The same world but so different. Absently, he rubbed his thigh though it had been a couple of weeks now since it had last bothered him. When he’d been shot, the doctors had told him it was not likely he would walk without a cane again. He had proven them wrong, and he would accept every discomfort in the world if it meant he could keep proving them wrong for as long as he lived.

_I saw the sun go up today, the world so quiet when it happened as if it wanted to stay still and hold on to this moment of serenity._

_I am coming back, if you’re willing to wait._

_I wonder sometimes if the hatred has planted itself so deeply in the hearts of men that it is impossible to remove every root of it._

_What are we fighting for? Have you ever wondered? And what do you think would happen if we just stopped? Tomorrow, today even. Just stopped and walked away..._

_I did not think any fight could last that long. It has only been months but it feels like years even when days go by in a blink._

_No one deserves to live through the things that I see every day._

_What do you dream about? When there is no holding back, what is it that you want from this life?_

Steve stayed there until the sky beyond the window started to turn pale grey and the door to Etta’s room creaked when she pushed it open, heading towards the kitchen to put on the kettle. Another half hour passed. Eventually, Steve heard Etta’s footsteps and saw her shadow beneath the door but she didn’t knock or say anything and he remained where he was, unmoving.

Soon, he would have to fold Diana’s letters again and put them away and head out to tend to the garden or to mend something or other—there was no shortage of missing shingles, blown off the roof in the storm, or rotting boards in need of replacement. But for now, for another few minutes, it was just him, and his memories of her.

He picked up another letter at random, following the rows upon rows of neat letters.

 _I will come back,_ Diana wrote _._

 _And I will wait,_ Steve thought.


End file.
